Blaze put out by water cans

Activists, residents allege fire was started to destroy vegetation and grab land.

As an inferno blazed through the forests of Aarey on Monday night, stopping just 20 ft short of residential areas on the hillock, the fire brigade resorted to an unconventional method to douse it.

On a hilly terrain, aided by high winds, a forest fire usually restarts after being contained to kindling. On Monday, after having contained the fire, Deputy Chief Fire Officer VN Panigrahi ordered his men to carry on foot plastic cans filled with water, of capacity ranging from 5-10 litres, through the forest and pour them out on burning stubs of wood. This was because fire tenders couldn’t reach the Aarey hillock where the fire started.

“I tried the most practical way of tackling the fire. It was not possible to take our hosepipes. We had to cut the concertina wire to even enter the plot. Our men then poured water in small quantities to make sure shrubs that were on fire could be put out,” said Panigrahi.

As assessment of the damage began on Tuesday, activists and many residents of Aarey Milk Colony alleged that the fire was the handiwork of land-grabbers. Claiming that there were several small pockets of fire in the forest, they also linked the timing of the blaze to the state government’s decision to open up buffer zones around national parks, tribal lands, private forest lands and flood zones for development under its Integrated Township Policy.

Pointing to aerial images of the fire, Anoopama Lohana, who describes herself as a wild beings crusader, said, “The fire spread in a peculiar circular shape. This doesn’t happen without human intervention. Moisture in Mumbai’s air takes care of any naturally-occurring sparks in a forest.”

Activist Mushtaq Ansari said during a ‘tree walk’ to the forest on Sunday with his children, he spotted ashes of burnt twigs, dry leaves and shrubs at several spots. “I wanted to talk to locals and the fire department about it. But the fire happened before I could.”

Mona Mohanty, an activist who was in Aarey on Monday night, said “breaks” in the spread of the fire indicate that the “someone placed heaps of dry leaves in a pile at regular intervals”.

Environmentalist D Stalin of NGO Vanashakti claimed that “the hills are on fire” every year. “I have complained about these to the Dindoshi police time and again. I have even raised it with National Green Tribunal. These fires were deliberately lit.”

Some residents whose houses oversee the forests backed the allegation that fires in Aarey’s forests are an annual phenomenon. Varsha Iyer, a local, said, “The fires are an easy way to scare tribals living nearby to evacuate the area, making it so much easier for land-grabbers.”

Ajit Jatar, whose row house is on the edge of the forest, said his house regularly gets filled with smoke from forest fires. “This usually happens several times from December-March.”

Cassandra Nazareth, a member of the Save Aarey movement, corroborated these accounts. “The tribals I work with were nonchalant about the fire. They said the builders’ men were clearing the vegetation, like every year,” she said.

Mahendra Chande, vice-president of developer Raheja Group, which owns the plot of land in Infiniti IT Park where the fire is suspected to have started, trashed this allegation. “There are a number of drug addicts and drunkards who gain access to the land. They fling cigarettes on dry grass, which is how the fire started.”

Sandeep Raheja, owner of Infiniti IT Park, said the cause of the fire is being probed. “We have also told the police to conduct an investigation. But charges of our people setting the plot on fire are false. In fact, the first call to the fire brigade was from us at 6 pm. There is no activity on the plot; it is a barren site. We have to find out whether it is some miscreant who set the plot on fire or it happened owing to dry weather.”

With fire tenders unable to access the hillock, the authorities had to use tree branches and water cans

Ajit Jatar has lived in a row house in Royal Hills adjacent to the Aarey forest for 12 years now and claims he has seen several forest fires each year. Still, he panicked when the fire came too close for comfort on Monday.

Retired government servant KT Shashidharan, 68, said the fire “came just 20 m from our compound wall”. “If the wind was any stronger, it would have reached our house.”

In the neighbouring Hill View Society, young mothers Shalini Ganju and Sohini Das were also petrified. “The smoke was coming into all flats on the hillside of the building. The kids were so scared, they were packed in one corner,” said Das. Ganju said residents could even hear the crackling of burning wood. “All of us rushed downstairs and stayed in the compound until the fire brigade told us that the fire was doused. It was an uneasy night,” she said.

A resident of Royal Hills Society said, “I could see the fire behind the hill. It was moving closer to the top. We could hear the crackle. We saw embers in the air.